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Author Topic: Kathy Kirby  (Read 742 times)
rn57
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« on: November 09, 2012, 11:21:43 PM »

Putting the British songstress of the 1960s who died last year into the search box I find she has never been mentioned on this board. Since few SSers not in the UK or Australia would have heard of her, a quick bio: she was a blonde, dazzling-looking Essex native with a very powerful voice. Her best known song in Britain was a version of Doris Day's Secret Love that went Top Five in 1963.  In the US, only a few 45s by her were released, and only one, The Way Of Love, even reached the lowest rung of the Top 100. (This was the same song Cher had a Top 10 hit with seven years later; her version, in arrangement and vocal style, is evidently modeled on the earlier record.)

I have listened to a fair amount of Kathy Kirby's music on YouTube and Spotify, and am always impressed by what appears to be a total disinclination to use anything resembling the ego-driven, showy diva style we are overwhelmed by now. She always seems intent, as big and powerful as her voice is, on letting nothing come between the listener and the song itself. Most of the songs, per se, that she recorded are middling or subpar, but when she does have the chance to do good material - her versions of "The Man I Love" and "Someone To Watch Over Me" come to mind - the results are often superb. In that respect she reminds me of Brian's fave Rosemary Clooney.

What I've read about her has brought to mind Brian himself because mental illness was not only her problem as well, it brought her career to an early end and drove her into almost total seclusion for the last three decades of her life. A biography of her will be published in the UK next month.
« Last Edit: November 10, 2012, 09:53:33 AM by rn57 » Logged
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